What are the best day trips from Savannah?

Tybee Island is the default, and for good reason. It's 30 km east of downtown Savannah, about 25 minutes by car on US-80, which crosses salt marshes where the warm, brackish air hits your windows before you see the Atlantic. Stop at Fort Pulaski National Monument on the way (founded 1829, $15 per adult), where the brick casemates stay cool even in September and the Civil War rifle damage is still visible in the masonry. The Tybee Island Light Station, first lit in 1736, charges $12 per adult, and the 178-step climb gives you a view from Hilton Head down to Wassaw Island. For couples, the North Beach end stays quieter than the commercial pier area. The Crab Shack on Chimney Creek Road seats you at outdoor tables over the tidal creek, and steamed blue crabs come by the bucket at $35-40 per person. Mind you, Tybee gets packed on summer weekends. A Tuesday or Wednesday in September still gives you warm water (upper 20s°C) with far fewer people.

Beaufort, South Carolina, 65 km north on US-17 and SC-170, is the better couples' day trip over Hilton Head. Most visitors get this backward. Hilton Head is a golf-resort island with chain restaurants and $30 parking fees at the beach accesses. Beaufort's Bay Street has independent restaurants where you can eat shrimp and grits overlooking the Beaufort River for $18-22 a plate. Try Plums on Bay Street or Saltus River Grill for waterside seating. Pat Conroy's house on The Point is a 10-minute walk from Bay Street, and the town served as a filming location for The Big Chill and Forrest Gump. The drive takes about an hour each way, which leaves you 5-6 hours to eat, walk the residential streets on The Point, and visit the John Mark Verdier House (built 1804, $12 admission). You'll smell pluff mud at low tide along the Beaufort River, the sulfurous tidal-flat scent that hangs over every Lowcountry waterfront from April through October.

Jekyll Island and St. Simons Island sit 130 km south, about 90 minutes on I-95. Of the two, Jekyll is more interesting for couples. The island was a private retreat for the Rockefellers and Vanderbilts from 1886 to 1942, and the Jekyll Island Club Resort still operates in the original 1887 clubhouse, where you can have lunch in the Grand Dining Room without being a hotel guest. Driftwood Beach on the north end has bleached oak and pine skeletons leaning into wet sand at the waterline, and the light after 5pm turns the whole stretch amber and gray. There's an $8 per vehicle parking fee. Bring bikes or rent them on-island ($20/day), because the 20-mile paved trail connects the historic district, the beaches, and the Georgia Sea Turtle Center ($12.95 admission). Spend the morning at Driftwood Beach, the afternoon at the Turtle Center, and eat at Latitude 31 before heading back.

Charleston is 170 km north on I-95 and I-26, about 2 hours each way, and it technically works as a day trip if you leave Savannah by 8am. But the honest call for couples is that Charleston deserves an overnight. Trying to walk The Battery, eat on King Street, and browse the French Quarter in one compressed day means you arrive tense and leave in the dark. If you do insist on a single day, skip the plantations (30-45 minutes outside the city, adding another hour of driving) and stay on the peninsula. Walk south from the Charleston City Market (operating since 1804) to Rainbow Row's 13 pastel Georgian townhouses on East Bay Street, then continue to The Battery seawall for a view of Fort Sumter across the harbor. Lunch at 167 Raw on East Bay or Husk on Queen Street runs $25-40 per person. That said, if one of you likes to linger and the other wants to keep moving, a single-day Charleston trip will test that. Beaufort or Jekyll makes a more relaxed couples' outing.